Christmas in Arkansas

We celebrated Christmas early in Arkansas with Nana and Papa.

Sahara and Jared came over on the Sunday before Christmas.

We opened gifts and had lasagna for dinner.

Merry Christmas!

Big Big Day!!

I'm so proud of my girl. I feel like I'm only ready for her to be graduating high school not college right now.

(walking in she is 1 behind the girl with the very long blonde hair in front of the chairs.)

(She is standing behind the 2nd white chair)

Receiving her BA in Psychology and an AS in Criminal Justice.

I guess in college you're allowed to decorate your cap.

Nana and I got her flowers.

Nana and papa came from Arizona to watch her graduate and spend Christmas with us.

Her dad was on the way to Colorado to meet with Rita's family for the holidays.  Perfect timing for a drive through to see her graduate.

Some of Jared's family came. Randy and Nicole and Hanna. And Susan and Nanny.

Then we all went to eat at Sahara favorite place for Mexican food. La Heurta.

She received many gifts, cards, cash, and well wishes. It seems like it was such a long hard process to get through college, and then bam! It was over in a Flash!

Taking a break for the next semester, then its Master time.

On the move....

Another move!

A house this time. Happy dance for the doggos!

Jared getting ready to start dinner on a gas stove for the first time ever.

Small eating area.

1 bath.

The craft, storage, dogs room.

The guest room.

Their room. Still a work in progress. But its getting there.

Getting Our Christmas On

The day after Thanksgiving, as usual, we start getting the Christmas stuff out. The tree went up and so did the rest of the inside decorations.

The next day I worked on the lights for the outside. I thought I was finally going to get to use those little Globe Spinners to make dancing lights on the house, because this was going to be the first year that the dogs were old enough not to chew up all the wires. Hahaha and then there's Jupiter. We're giving it a try anyway.

Christmas present to myself arrived. Not exactly what I was expecting but hopefully they will last me a couple of years.

We we went to the December art walk downtown on Friday, and of course Canyon got to see Santa Claus again. I think the pictures came out really cute: having a discussion, having a smile, being goofy.

On Saturday, we went to the outlet stores in Little Rock to get some Christmas shopping done. We did pretty good! They have such a pretty tree there.

Then we went out to eat at Taziki's. Pretty yummy Greek food.

Then on to the Sherwood Enchanted Forest. It was a free drive-through Christmas display that was collecting canned goods or donations at the end. We had brought some canned goods with us. It was a very very long line to wait in. They had the cars zigging and zagging all through a parking lot until they got to the entrance. It was like trying to get into Disneyland.

It was very nice! An hour and a half away from home but worth the drive.

Gobble Gobble

On our way out to eat with a big portion of Jared's family.

My offering was a last minute concoction of brussel sprouts and ground lamb.

Then we went to James's mom's for round 2.

I brought pepperoni spinach dip but it was completely uneaten because they had already eaten by the time we got there. So I brought it back home.

Sahara and Canyon got to visit with their dad and Uncle Thomas. It was a pretty good Thanksgiving although we miss our out of state family!